Current billing practices that may be used by service providers can bill one customer for one or more services on one billing statement. The services may be separately listed on the statement, with a single total shown for a balance due. For example, two phone services may be billed to one customer, or an Internet service and a cable service may be billed together. The statement may also reflect charges for services provided to a third party, which the customer has agreed to be responsible for.
The customer may be a business having a substantial number of service users and the billing statement may include a listing of charges per user. However, the customer, or business in this case, can be responsible for payment to the service provider for the total user charges and the users may be separately responsible to the business for their individual charges. For example, each employee of a business may have a phone having a separate extension. The billing statement from the service provider may reflect charges and totals for each extension, with a total of charges for all extensions due from the business. The business may in turn provide the employees with the charges for their extensions, such that the employees may reimburse the business for personal usage.
Currently, individuals or groups who wish to share one or more services may not be able to be billed individually for their respective shares of the services. For example, roommates may agree to share Internet service, with the charges split 60/40 based on their anticipated usage. However, the billing statement may reflect one charge and the room mates may need to divide the charge for each billing statement to determine their respective shares. In another example, parents may wish to pay for basic Internet service for their children living away from home, so that they may more easily communicate by email. The basic charge may vary, the children may wish to have different levels of service and some may incur additional charges for promotions or offers from the service provider. With current billing practices, either the parents can be billed for the children's services and can obtain reimbursement from their children for the extra charges, or the children can be billed individually and obtain reimbursement from the parents for the basic charge.
Currently, some service providers may provide cell phone services wherein the costs of additional phones and lines may be discounted for a group of users, e.g., a family as in a “Family Plan”. Typically, minutes of usage may be shared by members of the group across the lines that make up the group service. However, such group plans can provide only a single bill to one member of the group and do not provide separate billing for each member of the group.